more pinterest inspired baking

So this weekend I had my in-laws over for dinner on Sunday night because B was working and I wanted to make quiche. Since I LOVE quiche, and he hates it, I always make it when he’s gone. I also wanted to make these ‘asparagus fries‘ which I saw on Pinterest.

They seemed fairly easy and turned out great.

I didn’t have seasoned breadcrumbs so I put in some garlic salt with the breadcrumbs instead of seasoning. I put the asparagus spears into the egg whites, and then rolled them in the Parmesan cheese, breadcrumb and flour mixture. Into the oven they went and out they came about thirty minutes later. I cooked them differently since my quiche was cooking, so I cooked them for 30 minutes at 375, instead of 15 minutes at 450. The only thing was I had a lot of the mixture I rolled them in left over, which was kind of a bummer because it was just thrown away. So next time I will downgrade the mixture a lot to make it a smaller mixture so I don’t waste so much.

Cha-ching, a crispy, in-law approved side to my beloved Quiche!

Which, I must say, I make quiche all the time, on the fly with whatever we have in the fridge, and I cannot tell you how easy it is and how great it always turns out. And, I’m always down to eat quiche. ALWAYS.

Get a refrigerated pie crust. Pam the pan, roll out the pie crust and pinch the edges.

In a bowl, mix together 4 eggs, one cup of milk, a cup (or more) of spinach, a cup (or more) of any kind of cheese you like (I love using pepper jack because it gives it more spice, but usually mix it with pepper jack and something else or else it’s pretty spicy), and whatever else you have on hand. You can use

Tomatoes

Any kind of meat – chicken, ham, bacon, lunch meat, but my most favorite is peppered lunch meat. Cut it up, and throw it in.

Cut up peppers

Mushrooms

Broccoli

You can seriously add everything you have! That’s what I love about quiche. But this last quiche I used mushrooms, peppered lunch turkey meat, cheese and spinach and it was the BEST quiche I’ve ever made. I think the peppered meat made a huge difference. Then you just pour the mixture you’ve made in the pie crust and put it in the oven at 375 for 50 minutes, or until the center is set. Let it sit for 10 minutes before cutting it so it can set outside the oven and you’re all set. So, so easy. Too bad B hates it! He is missing out!

Lastly, the night before I made my quiche, I was in the baking mood and wanted to make some Brownies and have had my eyes on the Salted Carmel Brownies for quite some time. I didn’t really look closely at the recipe before making it, which was a mistake because it was a fairly detailed recipe. I for one, didn’t have the double boiler pan they used, and I’ve never made my own caramel, so both were new to me.

I followed the recipe, besides taking extra time, instead of 6-8 minutes, my caramel took 15 to get the ‘deep amber color’ it called for, and instead of using the double boiler pan as requested to melt the chocolate and butter together, I just melted it on very, very low heat in a regular pan, everything was seemingly okay. It did warn of over mixing quite a few places in the recipe and how your brownies would be cake-y, which scares me! I didn’t want to over mix and tried hard to mix it just so there was a ‘trace amount’ of flour mixture left after mixing the flour part of the recipe with the liquid part of the recipe. I also didn’t realize that the caramel touching the sides of the pan while baking would burn it, so I was very cautious while pouring the caramel in the middle of the brownie pan to not get it on the edges. It was pretty gooey when I put it in the oven.

It said to bake them for 30 minutes. I kept looking through the oven and they were not even CLOSE to being done at 30 minutes. I watched them and they finally were done at an hour, and they definitely were not burned on the edges, which was a big fear of mine. So after the toothpick test, they came out and cooled. They were still a little gooey in the middle, but that is better in my book than being burned, and I was pretty proud of how they came out. I salted the tops and they were delicious, a bit rich, so I cut them really small and set them all out for B to take to work the following day, setting aside a few bars for his parents as well and two for myself.

They were good for sure. A lot of work and preparation and a lot of different ingredients I wasn’t used to but I did enjoy making them and B said they were all gone by 4 pm the following day at the station. He said the response at the station was ‘they were good, not a favorite, but quite delicious’

So overall one excellent thing from pinterest, the asparagus fries, one good thing from pinterest, the salted caramel brownies, and then one of my all time and easiest recipes the quiche!

We eat a lot of quiche too – turns out making the crust is super easy as well if you have a food processor.

1.5 cups flour, 6 tablespoons butter, some milk (or water). Cut up the butter, stick it with the flour in the food processor and blend until it looks like course grain. Then with the processor running very slowly add milk until the dough comes together (just enough until you can form a ball – too stick and it get a bit messy). That’s it! I usually stick it in the fridge for a while to stiffen up and then I roll it out.

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